Xi'an Famous Foods 西安名吃 | Woodside — Restaurant in New York

I am a little scared to post this review because the Xi’an rep who comments on these posts seems a bit off-putting but I’ll share my personal experience here anyway.

I’ve eaten at various Xi’an locations and most of them have been good. I must admit I haven’t been to one in a few years so I was surprised to find that the flavor had changed slightly. The chili oil sauce that they use currently has more of a sour note than I remember. This isn’t a bad thing as many people enjoy a good spicy sour flavor balance. This wouldn’t deter me from going back to Xi’an either but let’s just say I enjoyed the old flavor better. Of course, I don’t know if they actually changed their ingredients or if the sauce has minute variations between different establishments but that’s just how I thought the flavor tasted.

I ordered the beef noodle soup as well as the mount qi pork noodle. The pork was super flavorful and very tender. The sauce coated the noodles perfectly and made for a very delicious experience. The beef noodle soup was piping hot and the noodles were perfectly cooked. The beef was also very tender and had its own delectable flavor.

This particular place is a part of the Xi’an warehouse it seems. There is a small seating area but no bathroom. There is plenty of street parking. Also, as I was taking my order to go quite a ways back home, I asked for the noodles to be packed separate from the soup. When I picked up my order, my online request was not carried out so I verbally asked again. I was told simply that they don’t do that. Lesson learned that if I want to order soup from here, I have to eat it right away, eat the noodles soggy, or bring my own container to separate the noodles...

Awesome place, awesome workers. I work around the corner so I eat here twice a week.

If it's your first time, get the Pork "Zha Zhang" Hand Pulled Noodles - Regular/Mildly Spicy (If you don't like spicy, please learn to like spicy then come back and eat here, since "not-spicy = not as good", the CEO of XFF agrees with me, and even says this on the loud speaker in a pre-recorded message occasionally at the store between songs)

The Lamb Burger is great too (It's not a burger, just a very nicely spiced lamb sandwich, with slices of marinaded lamb) Pro-Tip: Ask for them to chop the lamb into small pieces before they fill the sandwich, (they normally do this with the pork burger automatically, so it's not a strange request) you can also ask them to cut it in half... either way, this prevents you from pulling out an unwanted majority of the protein in one bite.

I buy their Chili Oil by the larger container, it's extremely good and made of 20+ ingredients, it's why their spicy dishes are so much better then their non-spicy dishes... especially in the...

I ordered the pork burger, lamb burger, spicy lamb noodles, lamb dumplings, and spinach dumplings: • Pork Burger - It was okay, nothing really special at all; the pork tasted good but the bread selection didn't match it at all and I even found some plastic embedded in to the bread. • Lamb Burger - Much more flavor than the Pork Burger and was quite good. • Spicy Lamb Noodles - The star of the show, or so I thought–the lamb was quite tasty but the noodles were bland. The complimentary ingredients all sunk down to the bottom so the full experience wasn't there. • Lamb Dumplings - This was the real star of the show; the meat mixture is perfect and the chili oil gives on of the best kicks ever. Easy 10/10, highly recommend it. • Spinach Dumplings - Really bland, the only thing that saved them was the chili oil. Overall disappointing experience; was expecting everything to be really good and only a few items met my...